Sleepless
by I'm having an identity crisis
Summary: Rose has a bad dream and fluffiness ensues.


**Just a bit of 10Rose I thought up... They're all I write nowadays. I'm in denial and I really don't care... I think I'll re-watch season two after this. I like season two – except for that one episode. You know what I'm talking about. This is probably cheesy and overdone, but so what? I like cheesy and overdone.**

_Sleepless_

_No,_ was her first thought as she woke. She knew it was just a bad dream – the Doctor wouldn't abandon her on a planet called Zolork – she was pretty sure that there wasn't a planet called Zolork, she'd have to ask the Doctor, though, and muffins did _not_ have that much air speed velocity. But it felt very, very real. Which was probably why, at – she glanced at the digital clock on her bedside table – at the ungodly hour of three forty seven, London time, she was getting up to find someone.

Only half-awake, she realized that her hair was probably a mess, and even though he only saw her as a friend, as a companion, it was not a good idea to approach the man you were half sure was the love of your life while your hair looked like falcons nested in it. That was bad. She ran her fingers through it, once, twice, three times, and was quite unaware that she was simply... Standing there. At the end of the hallway, looking into the control room, brushing her hair without even a proper hairbrush. She came to her senses quite quickly, but not before the Doctor... What was the word? She didn't want to seem egotistical, but it was almost as if he sensed her presence. _Nah,_ Rose thought, _TARDIS probably told him. _"Rose?" He asked. "Not that I'm not delighted and all, but why are you here?"

"I don't remember," she says dazedly. Why did she think this was a good idea again? She was quite sure it was a bad one now. What was she _thinking_?

"I mean, I don't _mind_, of course, I'm up for an adventure right now, but... Isn't it the human custom to be asleep from midnight to two p.m.?" Yeah, so she'd exaggerated her need for sleep a teensy bit. Sue her. It was just a little retaliation for every time he spoke of his 'superior Time Lord biology'. Superior biology, her arse. As far as she was concerned, being an insomniac was almost as bad as sleeping until the sun was halfway across the sky. Besides, the Doctor and his adventures often forced her to miss out on sleep for days, and it wasn't her fault she wasn't a time lord – or would she be a lady? – like him.

"Sorry," she said, brown meeting brown, one sheepish, one concerned, "it's stupid. I'll just be off now."

"Rose." She turns around, flashing him her signature cheeky smile. "_Rose._" It's _definitely_ just her imagination how his voice lowers an octave. Yup, he's looking down at her now. With those wonderful glasses she doesn't even think he needs (Wouldn't his superior time lord biology take care of that, too?) and that damn expression. Like he can't quite figure her out and wants to protect her all the same. "_Rose, tell me_."

And in that instant, she can't quite imagine lying to him, so she says quietly, "I had a bad dream," as fast as she can so that hopefully he'll leave it at that and they'll never speak of it again, so that he can go back to fiddling with the TARDIS and she can go back to her room and hopefully have some better dreams involving the Doctor.

But he didn't, he doesn't and he never will, because she's Rose and he's going to protect her no matter what – not just because of his promise, because he's broken his word before _and the thing that scares him the most is that one day he might have to break that particular promise_ – but because, somewhere deep in his hearts, he loves her, really and truly, and it's simply _fantastic_ but he doesn't even know it yet. So he reaches out and envelops her in a hug that is too strong and long to be _just friends_ like they so desperately pretend to be, and she tells him about her dream and he curses the day muffins were invented (_Stupid food, scaring my Rose_) and assures her over and over again that he's never going to leave – or take her to Zolork, because Zolork is annoying anyway and she wouldn't like it.

And maybe deep down they both know how they feel. But right now they're together, and that's all that matters.

_fin._


End file.
